Genesis 42:19

New American Standard Bible (1995)

if you are honest men, let one of your brothers be confined in your prison; but as for the rest of you, go, carry grain for the famine of your households,

Parallel Translations

Hebrew Names Version
If you are honest men, then let one of your brothers be bound in your prison-house; but you go, carry grain for the famine of your houses.

King James Version
If ye be true men, let one of your brethren be bound in the house of your prison: go ye, carry corn for the famine of your houses:

Lexham English Bible
If you are honest, let one of your brothers be kept in prison where you are now being kept, but the rest of you go, carry grain for the famine for your households.

New Century Version
If you are honest men, let one of your brothers stay here in prison while the rest of you go and carry grain back to feed your hungry families.

New English Translation
If you are honest men, leave one of your brothers confined here in prison while the rest of you go and take grain back for your hungry families.

Amplified Bible
if you are honest men, let one of your brothers be confined in your [place here in] prison; but as for the rest of you, go, carry grain for the famine in your households,

New American Standard Bible
if you are honest men, let one of your brothers be confined in your prison; but as for the rest of you, go, carry grain for the famine of your households,

Geneva Bible (1587)
If ye be true men, let one of your brethren be bounde in your prison house, and goe ye, carie foode for the famine of your houses:

Legacy Standard Bible
if you are honest men, let one of your brothers be confined in your prison; but as for the rest of you, go, bring grain for the famine of your households,

Contemporary English Version
If you are honest men, one of you must stay here in jail, and the rest of you can take the grain back to your starving families.

Complete Jewish Bible
(v) If you are upright men, let one of your brothers remain incarcerated in the prison you're being kept in, while you go and carry grain back to relieve the famine in your homes.

Darby Translation
If ye are honest, let one of your brethren remain bound in the house of your prison, but go ye, carry grain for the hunger of your households;

Easy-to-Read Version
If you are honest men, one of your brothers can stay here in prison, and the others can go and carry grain back to your people.

English Standard Version
if you are honest men, let one of your brothers remain confined where you are in custody, and let the rest go and carry grain for the famine of your households,

George Lamsa Translation
If you are pious men, let one of your brothers be bound in your prison; and the rest of you, go and carry grain for the famished who are in your household;

Good News Translation
To prove that you are honest, one of you will stay in the prison where you have been kept; the rest of you may go and take back to your starving families the grain that you have bought.

Christian Standard Bible®
If you are honest, let one of you be confined to the guardhouse, while the rest of you go and take grain to relieve the hunger of your households.

Literal Translation
If you are honest, let one of your brothers be bound in your prison house, and you go bring grain for the famine of your houses.

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Yf ye be vnfayned, let one of youre brethren lye bounde in youre preson: but go ye youre waye, and cary home the necessary foode,

American Standard Version
if ye be true men, let one of your brethren be bound in your prison-house; but go ye, carry grain for the famine of your houses:

Bible in Basic English
If you are true men, let one of you be kept in prison, while you go and take grain for the needs of your families;

Bishop's Bible (1568)
If ye be true men, let one of your brethren be bonde in the house of your pryson: and go ye, carry corne to put away the famine from your housholde.

JPS Old Testament (1917)
if ye be upright men, let one of your brethren be bound in your prison-house; but go ye, carry corn for the famine of your houses;

King James Version (1611)
If ye be true men, let one of your brethren be bound in the house of your prison: goe ye, carry corne for the famine of your houses.

Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
If ye be peaceable, let one of your brethren be detained in prison; but go ye, and carry back the corn ye have purchased.

English Revised Version
if ye be true men, let one of your brethren be bound in your prison house; but go ye, carry corn for the famine of your houses:

Berean Standard Bible
If you are honest, leave one of your brothers in custody while the rest of you go and take back grain to relieve the hunger of your households.

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
if ye ben pesible, o brother of you be boundun in prisoun; forsothe go ye, and bere wheetis, whiche ye bouyten,

Young's Literal Translation
if ye [are] right men, let one of your brethren be bound in the house of your ward, and ye, go, carry in corn [for] the famine of your houses,

Update Bible Version
if you are true men, let one of your brothers be bound in your prison-house; but you go, carry grain for the famine of your houses:

Webster's Bible Translation
If ye [are] true [men], let one of your brethren be bound in the house of your prison: go ye, carry corn for the famine of your houses:

World English Bible
If you are honest men, then let one of your brothers be bound in your prison-house; but you go, carry grain for the famine of your houses.

New King James Version
If you are honest men, let one of your brothers be confined to your prison house; but you, go and carry grain for the famine of your houses.

New Living Translation
If you really are honest men, choose one of your brothers to remain in prison. The rest of you may go home with grain for your starving families.

New Life Bible
If you are men who do not lie, let one of your brothers stay here in prison for all of you. But you others go and carry grain for your hungry families.

New Revised Standard
if you are honest men, let one of your brothers stay here where you are imprisoned. The rest of you shall go and carry grain for the famine of your households,

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
If ye, are, honest men, one brother of you shall be kept as a prisoner in your house of ward, - but, ye, go, take in corn for the famine of your houses;

Douay-Rheims Bible
If you be peaceable men, let one of your brethren be bound in prison: and go ye your ways, and carry the corn that you have bought, unto your houses.

Revised Standard Version
if you are honest men, let one of your brothers remain confined in your prison, and let the rest go and carry grain for the famine of your households,

Contextual Overview

⁷ When Joseph saw his brothers he recognized them, but he disguised himself to them and spoke to them harshly. And he said to them, "Where have you come from?" And they said, "From the land of Canaan, to buy food." ⁸ But Joseph had recognized his brothers, although they did not recognize him. ⁹ Joseph remembered the dreams which he had about them, and said to them, "You are spies; you have come to look at the undefended parts of our land." ¹⁰ Then they said to him, "No, my lord, but your servants have come to buy food. ¹¹ "We are all sons of one man; we are honest men, your servants are not spies." ¹² Yet he said to them, "No, but you have come to look at the undefended parts of our land!" ¹³ But they said, "Your servants are twelve brothers in all, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan; and behold, the youngest is with our father today, and one is no longer alive." ¹⁴ Joseph said to them, "It is as I said to you, you are spies; ¹⁵ by this you will be tested: by the life of Pharaoh, you shall not go from this place unless your youngest brother comes here! ¹⁶ "Send one of you that he may get your brother, while you remain confined, that your words may be tested, whether there is truth in you. But if not, by the life of Pharaoh, surely you are spies."

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

house: Genesis 40:3, Isaiah 42:7, Isaiah 42:22, Jeremiah 37:15

carry corn: Genesis 42:1, Genesis 42:2, Genesis 42:26, Genesis 41:56, Genesis 43:1, Genesis 43:2, Genesis 45:23

Reciprocal: Genesis 42:7 - roughly unto them Genesis 42:11 - true men Genesis 42:16 - kept in prison Genesis 42:33 - General

Cross-References

Genesis 40:3
So he put them in confinement in the house of the captain of the bodyguard, in the jail, the same place where Joseph was imprisoned.

Genesis 41:56
When the famine was spread over all the face of the earth, then Joseph opened all the storehouses, and sold to the Egyptians; and the famine was severe in the land of Egypt.

Genesis 42:1
Now Jacob saw that there was grain in Egypt, and Jacob said to his sons, "Why are you staring at one another?"

Genesis 42:2
He said, "Behold, I have heard that there is grain in Egypt; go down there and buy some for us from that place, so that we may live and not die."

Genesis 42:26
So they loaded their donkeys with their grain and departed from there.

Genesis 45:23
To his father he sent as follows: ten donkeys loaded with the best things of Egypt, and ten female donkeys loaded with grain and bread and sustenance for his father on the journey.

Isaiah 42:7
To open blind eyes, To bring out prisoners from the dungeon And those who dwell in darkness from the prison.

Isaiah 42:22
But this is a people plundered and despoiled; All of them are trapped in caves, Or are hidden away in prisons; They have become a prey with none to deliver them, And a spoil, with none to say, "Give them back!"

Jeremiah 37:15
Then the officials were angry at Jeremiah and beat him, and they put him in jail in the house of Jonathan the scribe, which they had made into the prison.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

If ye [be] true [men],.... As you say you are:

let one of your brethren be bound in the house of your prison; agree among yourselves which of you (for one of you must) remain in prison where you are: and the rest being set at liberty,

go ye, carry corn for the famine of your houses; Joseph, though he dealt with them after this manner to get what knowledge he could of his family, and to get sight of his brother, yet was concerned for the good of them and theirs, lest they should be in extreme want through the famine, and that they might have a speedy supply of corn, was not willing to detain them any longer.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

- Joseph and Ten of His Brethren

1. שׁבר sheber, “fragment, crumb, hence, grain.” בר bar “pure,” “winnowed,” hence, “corn” (grain).

6. שׁליט shallı̂yṭ, “ruler, governor, hence,” Sultan. Not elsewhere found in the Pentateuch.

25. כלי k^elı̂y, “vessel,” here any portable article in which grain may be conveyed. שׂק śaq, “sack,” the very word which remains in our language to this day. אמתחת 'amtachath “bag.”

Twenty years, the period of Joseph’s long and anxious waiting, have come to an end. The dreams of his boyhood are now at length to be fulfilled. The famine has reached the chosen family, and they look at one another perplexed and irresolute, not knowing what to do.

Genesis 42:1-5

The aged Jacob is the only man of counsel. “Behold, I have heard there is grain in Mizraim:” go down and buy. The ten brothers are sent, and Benjamin, the youngest, is retained, not merely because of his youth, for he was now twenty-four years of age, but because he was the son of his father’s old age, the only son of Rachel now with him, and the only full brother of the lost Joseph. “Lest mischief befall him,” and so no child of Rachel would be left. “Among those that went.” The dearth was widespread in the land of Kenaan.

Genesis 42:6-17

The ten brothers meet with a rough reception from the lord of the land. “The governor” - the sultan. This, we see, is a title of great antiquity in Egypt or Arabia. Joseph presided over the cornmarket of the kingdom. “Bowed down to him with their faces to the earth.” Well might Joseph think of those never-to-be-forgotten dreams in which the sheaves and stars bowed down to him. “And knew them.” How could he fail to remember the ten full-grown men of his early days, when they came before him with all their peculiarities of feature, attitude, and mother tongue. “And he made himself strange unto them.” All that we know of Joseph’s character heretofore, and throughout this whole affair, goes to prove that his object in all his seemingly harsh treatment was to get at their hearts, to test their affection toward Benjamin, and to bring them to repent of their unkindness to himself.

“They knew not him.” Twenty years make a great change in a youth of seventeen. And besides, with his beard and head shaven, his Egyptian attire, his foreign tongue, and his exalted position, who could have recognized the stripling whom, twenty years ago, they had sold as a slave? “Spies are ye.” This was to put a color of justice on their detention. To see the nakedness of the land, not its unfortified frontier, which is a more recent idea, but its present impoverishment from the famine. “Sons of one man are we.” It was not likely that ten sons of one man would be sent on the hazardous duty of spies. “And behold the youngest is with our father this day.” It is intensely interesting to Joseph to hear that his father and full brother are still living. “And one is not.” Time has assuaged all their bitter feelings, both of exasperation against Joseph and of remorse for their unbrotherly conduct. This little sentence, however, cannot be uttered by them, or heard by Joseph, without emotion. “By the life of Pharaoh.” Joseph speaks in character, and uses an Egyptian asseveration. “Send one of you.” This proposal is enough to strike terror into their hearts. The return of one would be a heavy, perhaps a fatal blow to their father. And how can one brave the perils of the way? They cannot bring themselves to concur in this plan. Sooner will they all go to prison, as accordingly they do. Joseph is not without a strong conviction of incumbent duty in all this. He knows he has been put in the position of lord over his brethren in the foreordination of God, and he feels bound to make this authority a reality for their moral good.

Genesis 42:18-25

After three days, Joseph reverses the numbers, allowing nine to return home, and retaining one. “This do and live.” Joseph, notwithstanding the arbitrary power which his office enabled him to exercise, proves himself to be free from caprice and unnecessary severity. He affords them a fair opportunity of proving their words true, before putting them to death on suspicion of espionage. “The God do I fear.” A singular sentence from the lord paramount of Egypt! It implies that the true God was not yet unknown in Egypt. We have heard the confession of this great truth already from the lips of Pharaoh Genesis 41:38-39. But it intimates to the brothers the astonishing and hopeful fact that the grand vizier serves the same great Being whom they and their fathers have known and worshipped; and gives them a plain hint that they will be dealt with according to the just law of heaven.

“Carry grain for your houses.” The governor then is touched with some feeling for their famishing households. The brothers, though honoring their aged father as the patriarch of their race, had now their separate establishments. Twelve households had to be supplied with bread. The journey to Egypt was not to be undertaken more than once a year if possible, as the distance from Hebron was upwards of two hundred miles. Hence, the ten brothers had with them all their available beasts of burden, with the needful retinue of servants. We need not be surprised that these are not especially enumerated, as it is the manner of Scripture to leave the secondary matters to the intelligence and experience of the reader, unless, as in the case of Abraham’s three hundred and eighteen trained servants, they happen to be of essential moment in the process of events. “Your youngest brother.” Joseph longs to see his full brother alive, whom he left at home a child of four summers. “Verily guilty are we concerning our brother.”

Their affliction is beginning to bear the fruit of repentance. “Because we saw the distress of his soul when he besought us, and we would not hear.” How vividly is the scene of Joseph’s sale here brought before us. It now appears that he besought them to spare him, and they would not hear! “This distress.” Retribution has come at last. “His blood is required.” Reuben justly upbraids them with their hardness of heart. Their brother’s blood is required; for murder was intended, and when he was sold his death was pretended. “The interpreter was betwixt them.” The dragoman was employed in holding conversation with them. But Joseph heard the spontaneous expressions of remorse, coming unprompted from their lips. The fountain of affection is deeply stirred. He cannot repress the rising tear. He has to retire for a time to recover his composure. He now takes, not Reuben, who was not to blame, but Simon, the next oldest, and binds him before them: a speaking act. He then gives orders to supply them with corn (grain), deposit their money in their sacks without their knowledge, and furnish them with provision for the way. Joseph feels, perhaps, that he cannot take money from his father. He will pay for the corn out of his own funds. But he cannot openly return the money to his brothers without more explanation than he wishes at present to give.

Genesis 42:26-34

The nine brothers return home and record their wonderful adventure. “In the inn;” the lodge or place where they stopped for the night. This place was not yet perhaps provided with even the shelter of a roof. It was merely the usual place of halting. They would probably occupy six or seven days on the journey. Apparently at the first stage one opened his sack to give provender to his ass. The discovery of the silver in its mouth strikes them with terror. In a strange land and with an uneasy conscience they are easily alarmed. It was not convenient or necessary to open all the bags on the way, and so they make no further discovery.

Genesis 42:35-38

Upon emptying the other sacks all the silver turns up, to their great amazement and consternation. Jacob laments the loss of his son. Reuben offers two of his sons to Jacob as pledges for Benjamin, to be slain if he did not bring him back in safety. The sorrowing parent cannot yet bring himself to consent to Benjamin’s departure on this hazardous journey. “And ye shall bring down.” Jacob either speaks here in the querulous tone of afflicted old age, or he had come to know or suspect that his brothers had some hand in the disappearance of Joseph.